Bestow to the Victor
by TheFuehrerling
Summary: Wanderlust. Sarah's experience in the Underground infected her with it. And now, as an adult, she unsuccessfully tries to satisfy her hunger for travel and adventure by traveling the world. But when hen a job opportunity in the Underground presents a career change to her, she might just find the wanderlust she craves. Full description in profile!
1. Ch 1: War Hero

**Bestow to the Victor**

 **Author's note:** _I originally began writing this story like 13 years ago, posting only the first two chapters. I got deterred with-ya know, life and growing up, so I thought I'd retry it after an absence from ffn. So here it is again._

 ** _Disclaimer: The motion picture, "Labyrinth" is an original idea created by Jim Henson. It does not belong to me, nor will it ever. So there._**

 **Chapter 1: A War Hero**

Home. How oddly comforting that simple, enigmatic word seemed to her as she walked among the autumn-strewn leaves that lined the streets of her New England hometown. Home is where she would be greeted by an intuitive familiarity; it is where she could once again fall right into step, regardless of how long she was away. Home is where she would be greeted by the sights and sounds that evoke a euphoric rush in one's mind, like a mind-bending drug, stimulating a moment of pure ecstasy in recollection, and then curbing the appetite for anything else in the world.

"Only minutes away from home," she thought, grabbing her valise more securely as she prodded away from the tiny train station that housed a set of trains that ran daily to the airport. And in all her weariness, Sarah smiled for the remaining draining blocks.

With the last of her bags finally unpacked, Sarah gave a sigh of relief and standing, hands upon hips, looked around her bedroom in satisfaction. She was exhausted from traveling, but she would not let that be her barrier. "For once, I'm glad to be back home," she whispered almost inaudibly to herself before collapsing on the bed in front of her to catch her second wind.

She stared up at the ceiling above her and reminisced for a few moments over the past few days. Real life proved to be a hard-hitting obstacle to conquer, nothing like Sarah had expected. Finding a grown-up job, as her father so aptly called it in numerous emails over the past few months, seemed to her such a petty chore, disgusting and below her.

"Have you thought about going to nursing school?" she read aloud from her laptop just last week at a tiny al fresco cafe in Rome.

Really, dad? Sarah remembered stumbling through her college biology class with barely a "C". Snorting quite unladylike at the thought, she mumbled a quick obscenity just as a tall and rather tan Roman waiter with a chiseled face and aquiline nose put down Sarah's cup of espresso. His locks of dark hair curled just below his ears and his eyes held something of a raw salacious look that Sarah could only picture mingled between sweaty bed sheets.

"Scusa?" He interrupted, cocking up one dark eyebrow and letting the tiniest smirk play on one corner of his mouth as if he had understood Sarah's appalling use of English perfectly well.

She laughed a little then, turning her prettiest smile upon him. "Sorry," she said, wondering if this perfect Roman specimen spoke enough broken English to escort her back to her rented flat with a bit of friendly conversation. "Thanks for this-grazie."

Yes, the real world was arduous, but traveling around the world? A piece of cake.

Sarah smiled at the memory of the Roman cafe, reminiscing about all of her travels over the past two years. She felt exhilarated, free, edified, mature...and safe. Almost as if nothing could chase her to Europe, although she could never figure out why this feeling might exist.

Her days were filled with mesmerizing self-propelled excursions where she'd lose herself among the ancient cobblestone paths of whatever city she was in...Rome, Vienna, Loches. Climbing over statues that beheld the steely scowl of some Ottoman emperor. Laughing and running to peer behind moss-covered stone doors held up by a perfect keystone, gazing wide-eyed and curious, like a little lost child in a supermarket, into the dark areas where no person has ventured for centuries. Always searching, always searching.

But never finding.

But searching for what? She didn't want to think.

And it wasn't as if she wasn't making a living, like her parents accused. She paid her way doing the only thing she knew best: telling stories. Travel writing was something Sarah briefly explored during college, but now, her talent was put to such good use. Her words scrawled onto almost every English publication on the main continent, bespeaking her tales of good food, fine wine, and luxurious company. Yes, her days could be quite wonderful.

But at night, night was the time when all memories of the day had vanished and she was left alone with her thoughts.

Sometimes, when her head was dizzy from too much champagne and the vibrant glow of the moon crept in her veranda window, clothing her bed with its soft blush, she lay awake thinking about them..about him. And so she tossed and turned on her pillow, as if trying to rub the memory from her brain, disturbing (on occasion) her bedmate for the evening, who would groggily try to pacify her tumultuous flails by smoothing her wild mass of silky black tresses with his lips. She relented, for a moment, listening until her foreign companion's breathing slowed into muted snores and she turned towards the moon to cry the silent breathy tears of a little girl just awake from an awful nightmare of goblins and ghouls. Only then would she let sleep take over her.

But it wasn't until her stay in Rome when she finally gave in and decided to return home. It was another tearful night of tossing and turning and trying to forget. Fabrizio, her chiseled Roman waiter, awoke and turned soft brown eyes upon her.

"Sarah, bella," he whispered in a raspy voice that Sarah could tell was reserved only for pillow talk. He raised a gentle, tanned finger to her cheek stained pink with wetness. He drew back his finger, looking at it with tender sorrow and kissed away the tear there. "Che l'e? Why are you not asleep?" She looked beautiful in the moonlight-even in her tears-star-kissed and flushed, her shiny black hair hanging in a mess of wavy tendrils that wrapped around her shoulders and fell below her white eyelet-clad breasts. Her eyes shone a brilliant emerald, welling up with water, and she turned them on Fabrizio, who was suddenly just a friendly foreign stranger, with the aching emptiness of a lost little girl.

"Please leave me...leave me alone," she murmured in a tiny voice, turning her head into her pillow with a muffled sob.

She couldn't run away anymore.

And so she was home. Starting a job as a freelancer for a local magazine. Coming back to reality at the age of twenty-five. Her lips twitched at the thought of herself in such a domestic role after years of running free. Maybe she needed this, a tiny dose of real life. "And this really is real life," she thought as she closed her eyes and took in an exuberant inhalation of the sweet smell of her old Tinkerbelle perfume, the smell of her dreams. Sarah smiled at the familiar scent, softly humming a tune that had carved out a little niche in the back of her mind, although she could not quite place its melody.

The sound of someone shouting followed by short bouts of laughter brought her out of her reverie. Toby and her father must be helping Karen make dinner tonight. Sarah offered the world a small grin of contentment and snuggled her head deeper into the pillow. Maybe it would be best to catch a little shuteye before joining her family for a most welcome meal.

* * *

She had no idea how much time had passed in her respite, but Sarah awoke with a start. It took her a moment to adjust her eyes to the dim lighting of the room and she cautiously took in her surroundings.

What had woken her? "Hunger," Sarah thought indisputably. But her silent stomach seemed to disagree with her assessment. She swallowed hard and closed her eyes once more.

It was...something. Something had been the culprit in the disturbance of her grateful slumber. It was something, and it was this something that made the back of her neck grow cold and her stomach flip over. But what was it?

A soft scuffle on the carpet resonating with the facsimile of someone's footsteps across the floor caused Sarah's ears to perk up and she squeezed her eyes shut tight.

Toby? her voice cracked in a strange sound that divulged her weariness and her fear at the same time. Please be Toby, please be Toby, please be Toby, her heart seemed to beat in perfect meter.

What are you so afraid of, stupid?

Another scuffle. It sounded like someone was wrenching their hand across a glass window. This time, Sarah did open her eyes, glancing from corner to corner, finally allowing her eyes to settle on the window. She stuck the tip of her thumbnail in her mouth, chewing absent-mindedly in a nervous tic, and narrowed her eyes until they shone like two glowing emeralds in the darkness. She squinted, peering at the window, hesitating to get up.

"There's nothing there," she said aloud to no one, as if the words would convince herself otherwise. "I have jet lag and I'm dreaming."

But her nerves didn't seem to believe what her voice was telling her. There was a tiny bit of buried knowledge coming from somewhere deep inside her, rising up like a bubble before bursting right in her throat.

Pop!

"The mirror," she murmured. The words came out in a ghost of whisper, barely passing over dry, cracked lips and settling on her own ears in a girlish whimper that surprised Sarah.

Sarah slammed her eyelids shut again, squeezing so tightly that little white stars appeared in the darkness of her mind. She had made it a point not to look into her vanity mirror when arriving back home. She hadn't looked into it any time she returned home...not since, well, Sarah didn't like to think back that far.

After two years of visiting with her friends from the Labyrinth, chatting with them into late hours of the night, laughing with them as Hoggle entertained her with stories of late-night goblin tipping, and clapping at Didymus and Ludo's tall tales of chivalry, Sarah was leaving for college.

I'll come home all the time, she tried to explain excitedly, stuffing clothes into her bags. Weekends, holidays, and don't forget summer vacation. But something in Didymus's eyes and the way Hoggle cast his head down gave her the lie, for she didn't call on them again, spending her summer breaks traveling and then leaving for good after graduation.

Is this what you've been running from?

Maybe it's time to face the music.

Sarah sighed and slowly opened one eye, letting it peer rapidly around the room, but the mirror seemed to call to her. Both eyes opened beneath veiled eyelids, two narrow green slits that settled on her own reflection in the foggy haze of her vanity mirror. For a moment, she locked eyes with herself, taking in the all of the fear, all of the sorrow, all of the loneliness that looked back at her. Sarah laughed a little at her reflection, but it was not a pretty laugh.

"What has happened to me?" she thought, running her hands through her mass of thick hair and flipping it back over her shoulders in an exaggerated fashion. Her hair still had the length it had when she was 15; although, it grew darker and she wore it in lovely loose curls that seemed to complement the exquisite creaminess of her face and bring out the shining emerald of her eyes.

Her eyes were instantly drawn to a shadowy figure moving clumsily in the far corner of her mirror, fumbling through the haze, dispersing it into liquid smoke that seemed to rise out of the glass and disappear into the twilight of her bedroom. Sarah sank back a little into her cozy fortress, gathering her knees to her chest in almost a defensive movement, never letting her eyes leave the mirror.

This grandiose entrance disposed any arrival her former friends from the Underground held, and for a few fleeting moments, her heart beat faster at the possibility of...someone else surfacing through the haze.

"Is this fear?" Sarah thought as she brought a hand to her chest and flattened it there as if to steady her heartbeat with a push of her fingertips. The pit of her stomach told her that it was something else entirely.

But before she could murmur a word, the figure emerged, stepping into the muted glow of the moonlit window, and spoke in a hushed voice.

"Are you Sarah Williams?" the voice asked, a slight accent lilting his cadence.

Opening her mouth in utter disorientation, Sarah looked the man over in slight peculiarity. He was an elderly man, with a small stature and a plump belly. He had short gray hair with a small cowlick sticking up near the back of his head, and she could see the ends of his hair matted with beads of perspiration forming at his hairline. Sarah could tell he was uncomfortable, for he wrung his hands together in a hurried method, and shuffled from foot to foot nervously while awaiting her reply.

There was something in this man that brought to mind an unnerving memory that she was sure had never existed. It was something in his appearance and enunciation.

The man stood, somewhat slumped, in dark trousers tucked gawkily into his boots. A short black jacket with wide sleeves hung open, revealing a plate of silver armor clinging to his upper chest, yet scarcely concealing his obtruding belly. A crimson cape made of what seemed to be the finest velvet hung crookedly over his hunched shoulders. This man's clothing fit limply and most awkwardly over his body, and Sarah almost laughed at the ungallant picture he made, but sensibility got the best of her, and she thought better of the initiative.

Yet something about the oafishness of this man did nothing to ease that unpleasant recollection she felt in his presence.

She suddenly remembered he had spoken to her. What was it that he had asked?

Oh yes, her name.

"Umm," Sarah started, but couldn't finish for fear her voice would come out in shrill, panicky bursts.

The man leaned forward, his skin shimmering with a luminescence uncharacteristic to his clumsy look and squinted his eyes, searching her face.

"Hmmm. Yes, I can see that you are indeed her," he said. "Sarah Williams. Conqueror of the labyrinth?"

Sarah could feel the blood drain from her cheeks and she let out a soft gasp of surprise. There was that memory again, and this time she was left to deal with it as truth and fact. It was a fictional feat brought out from the dark recesses of her mind into the cruel prying hands of the existent world. It was an open sore licked by the salty tongues of reality.

"Oh. Um. I'm Sarah." She swallowed hard and coughed back her tremor.

Let's try that again.

"Who are you and why are you here?"

The man smiled at her sudden change in voice. A regular little spitfire, she was.

"My darling girl! I bring you no harm! Quite the contrary, actually. But first, allow me to introduce myself." The man had stopped shuffling nervously and the merriment in his eyes relaxed Sarah momentarily. She inhaled sharply with his shift in movement and noticed an earthy aroma in the air. It smelled of a wood-burning fireplace and cinnamon pine cones and a musky spice she couldn't quite place. Was it from the fog in the mirror or the man himself?

"You've probably already guessed that I am indeed from the Underground. He stopped to titter quietly and leaned against the frame of her window. I am the Chief Legislator of the High Council of the Labyrinthine Isles." He cocked his head to one side and thought for a moment. "Sort of a Prime Minister, if you will. I'm not quite part of the royal family, but I'd say I do one hell of a job governing for them!"

He laughed loudly at his own accolade, and in spite of herself, Sarah gave a grudging smile.

"Sir Friedrich von Rennon at your service, my dear," he smiled at her with twinkling eyes, and made a slight gesture that could be seen as a bow. You have no idea how happy I am to finally reach you. I've been trying to contact you for months.

"Months? Well, I've been away..." Sarah's voice drifted off as she mumbled, not really wanting to explain her absence to this stranger. For the first time in a long time, Sarah let the memories of one fantastical night as a teenager come flooding back to her. She bit the corner of her lower mouth in confusion before starting up again. "But I don't understand. You needed to contact me? There isn't anything wrong with one my friends, is there?"

Sarah felt a sudden pang of guilt creep into her stomach and nauseate her. It's all your fault, idiot. You left your friends without even a good-bye and now they're all dead. Her brow furrowed and she let her frightened eyes gaze up into kind, frosty blue ones.

"Friends?" He sounded surprised and his eyes widened a little bit in devout curiosity as he cocked his head to the side and waited for Sarah to continue.

"I used to talk to a few of my friends from the Labyrinth-Hoggle, Sir Didymus, and Ludo-but I haven't been around..."

"Ah," the man interrupted and a slight smile crept onto his lips. "You outgrew your imagination." His eyes bored into her as if he understood her completely, but to Sarah, they were quite accusatory.

Shit. There's that nauseating guilt again.

"No, Sarah. I'm not here on behalf of your friends. I suppose that's something you'll have to rectify yourself." He stopped suddenly as if he could read all the doubt of the logic of this situation clearly on her face. The man stepped forward toward the bed, tapped Sarah's arm in a rather paternal gesture and said softly in his exquisite English, "I can assure you, child, I am most definitely real. You can never grow too old to forget your voyage to our world."

Sarah looked up into his blue eyes that were satiated with such concern and was touched by his understanding. Offering him a half smile, she exhaled a long, satisfying sigh, and shrugged her shoulders.

"I'm sorry... sir von Rennon, was it? Please continue."

He smiled with his eyes.

"You may call me 'Fritz', my lovely," he said, winking. Then, clearing his throat, he began once more, "Right, right. Oh, bloody hell. What was I saying?" He withdrew from Sarah and pacing in front of the window, he mumbled blurrily to himself while flicking carelessly at his cowlick.

"Oh yes. I'm making you a proposition." Fritz's bearing had abruptly changed and there was a low note in his tone that Sarah could recognize as the onset of a serious topic.

"I'm going to make this frank and short. There is an open position as sovereign in one of the provinces of the Labyrinth." Fritz waited for Sarah's expression to change, but when didn't open her mouth, he continued. "As victor of the labyrinth, you are given priority over the position. I have been sent by the rest of the Council to offer this to you." Fritz stopped short to collect his breath before continuing. "Quite frankly, Sarah, you are seen as a war hero."

She shook her head in disbelief and stood up to face him. Sarah towered over Fritz by a good three inches, but something about his stature still exuded a distinct magical power that made Sarah a little apprehensive.

"A sovereign? I don't even know what that is. And more importantly," Sarah said as she took a step closer to him, gaining a bit of courage. "Why are you offering this now? Shouldn't I have received this when I won the game?"

"Ah-ah," Fritz said quietly, looking at her beneath lowered lids and very slowly, he angled a finger at Sarah, rocking it back and forth in front of her face, as if she were a very naughty child that needed to be chastised. "This is not a prize. I believe you graciously refused your spoils," he said, his voice hitting a low note that made Sarah feel like she had just been rebuked for some heinous crime.

Her spoils? Sarah cast her eyes down in embarrassment, thinking of her last moments in the castle beyond the Goblin City.

Look, Sarah. Look at what I'm offering you-your dreams. Just let me rule you and you can have everything you want.

Throwing up her hands in exasperation, Sarah threw Fritz an irritated glower. "Some prize," she snorted, her voice thick with sarcasm. "Spend an eternity in the same place where I had just spent the most dangerous 13 hours of my life? With goblins? And their king? Sick."

She let her head fall into her palms, and soothed away the building tension in her forehead with her fingertips. This was just getting too weird. This isn't really happening. It's just the stress from traveling.

Fritz tightened his jaw at her last words, but did not move from his stance against the window. "We won't quibble over the wording," he said casually, arms crossed over his armor. His skin shimmered beneath the moonlight, a glossy gossamer that seemed to radiate onto his silver hair. For the first time, Sarah noticed the choppy lines of light blue that traveled up from the outer corners of his eyes and tapered into the arched crevice of his triangular brows. The feature was much too familiar and Sarah shuddered at the slightest memory of seeing eyes like Fritz's once before.

"The fact of the matter is, as victor of the Labyrinth, you do have some pull in the Underground and we are offering you this position..." Fritz's voice trailed off for a moment and he tapped a finger on his chin as if lost in deep thought. "...as sort of an added bonus for a job well-done. To the victor go the spoils, you know? As I've already told you, you possess all the qualities of a war hero, just as candidates in your world are elected into office. By defeating the labyrinth, you have proved strength and mentality, important decision-making skills, tenacity, and most important to any political leader, charm."

Sarah thought over his words and realized smugly that she did, in fact, use all of those traits during her trip through the Labyrinth. But didn't everybody?

And as if reading her thoughts, "You'd be surprised at home many people give up when they can't find the entrance to the maze," Fritz replied in a soft voice that dripped with some sort of emotion that Sarah could only place as pity. You will be given proper instruction from myself and other members of the Council. And as for the terminology, sovereign is just a fancy word for gate-keeper. This position is only as lord protector over one providence of the kingdom-keeping things in check. All matters are reported to His Majesty, King Jareth."

Jareth?

Jareth. The name rang a tiny alarm in Sarah's mind and she instantly knew why. Another memory emerged from the cobwebs of her mind.

"The Goblin King," she said simply, without emotion. At her voice, Fritz looked vigilantly over her face. A vague expression, unbeknownst to him, passed quickly over her face, and then was gone.

Sarah focused her attention beyond Fritz, narrowing her eyes on the soft pink curtains lining the windows. Then, turning her concentration back to the man front of her, she gave her reply to his proposal apologetically, as if knowing the answer from the beginning. "I can't go back."

"Jareth has asked for you." Fritz blurted it out hurriedly, as if rushing the fact might make her change her mind. It was a lie, but Sarah wouldn't know. In fact, Jareth had done just the opposite, bellowing never to bring that girl back to his kingdom and threatening the Council members to a lovely retirement in the Bog of Eternal Stench if they should ever defy his authority. He had acted quite childish when making his point, throwing vanishing crystals at the poor, stupid goblins that were attempting to dress a chicken in a suit of goblin armor.

Fritz knew it wasn't contempt behind Jareth's rationale. He saw something deeper when he looked into his eyes-conflicting emotions bordering upon pain and bitterness, but he also knew Jareth was too proud to ever confide in him. He was a shrewd and astonishingly clever ruler, but stubborn as a mule. It had taken an entire afternoon and well into early dusk for the Council to convince Jareth that the kingdom needed her in this dire situation. With a looming war, the members knew that Sarah was the key.

"How do I know this isn't some dirty trick in an attempt to lure me back so that he can do something horrible? As I recall, the Goblin King and I did not see eye to eye."

Sarah's suspicion pushed aside any flattery she felt earlier and she crossed her arms over her chest to let her point be made.

"Of course it isn't a trick, but I can't prove it to you. Come, come, child. Tell me your decision. I haven't all day, and there are others that the king has in line for the position." He lied again. There were no others. As the last victor of the Labyrinth, Sarah was needed to return before the kingdom fell into complete civil war.

But she didn't need to know that.

At least not yet.

"I'm not here to force you into anything," he said more softly. "Take it or leave it, although I'm sure your friends would be overjoyed to see you once more." This time, Fritz spoke with a coaxing lilt at the end of his sentence, as if he was dangling a treat in front of a skittish cat in an attempt to lure it back into the house.

At the thought of making up for lost time with her old friends, Sarah's eyebrows rushed together, forming high angles over flickering green eyes. She looked like a cat in the dark. A cat ready to pounce.

Seeing her friends-and the Underground-again reignited Sarah's sense of wanderlust, the very wanderlust she thought was lost when she returned home.

But somehow, this was different, and she couldn't quite figure out why.

Or at least she didn't want to figure out why.

And without thinking, she answered readily, all traces of anger and disappointment blotted out from her voice.

"I'll take it."

Oh God, what had she just done? Signed her life away? Maybe this was a huge mistake.

Just take it back, Sarah.

But her words would not come, and she stood there, rooted, waiting for Fritz to respond.

For a moment, the Chief Legislator looked as if he had not heard her properly, and then a slow smile spread across his gleaming face.

"Very well, I shall return within 26 hours. That will give me adequate time to prepare your arrival, get the paperwork ready, meet with the officials... you know the routine."

He walked toward the mirror hastily, and she could see his presence begin to wane. Swiftly, Sarah fell backwards onto the bed, and squeezing her eyes shut, she tried with all her might to block out the odd pang in her stomach. She was going. Going away from the safe haven of her house, of her life, perhaps forever. Isn't this what she thrived on, though? Travel? Adventure? Somehow Sarah knew that as worldly as she had become in the last few years, her experience would now be completely irrelevant in a completely different world.

With a heavy heart, Sarah sat up, and prepared to meet her family for dinner.

"I guess I'm leaving home for a while," she said.


	2. Ch 2: A New Career in a New Town

**Disclaimer:** Labyrinth and all its characters are original ideas and do not belong to me. "A New Career in a New Town" is written by David Bowie and appears on _Low_.

 **A New Career in a New Town**

The cool evening breeze of the Underground's autumn air felt pleasant on the hot faces of the twelve men seated round the large oaken table in the middle of the castle's dining room. As they relaxed with the much-welcomed lull in chatter, a smattering of starlight shone through the windows and lit up their stuffed faces. Some were dwarfish with wide features, one was adorned with thick crimson fur and whiskers, while others held the very refined look of fey men-thin, elegant lips standing out against the pale richness of shimmering skin lined with high brows and otherworldly eyes.

A lazy serenity fell upon the group while a few goblin servants idled about, clearing the food from the surrounding tables. The discussions and laughter became less vibrant, and several of the gentlemen were nodding off from overloaded stomachs. It was during this hiatus, that the assembled party seemed a placid, quiet lot.

A small red-faced man at the head of the table withdrew a stout, intricately carved pipe from the inside pocket of his jacket, and bringing it to his nose, he sniffed, testing it for usage.

"If I may say a word before we discuss politics any further," Fritz said. "I'd like to announce the upcoming arrival of our new sovereign in the Launfal Province, west of the Labyrinth."

In an instant, the serenity had fled the loafing horde, and something electric snapped through the air. The mortal woman must have accepted the offer! Murmurs and faint applause channeled through the crowd, and a tall, thin man, lounging lazily against a wall with arms crossed negligently over his chest, scanned the assembly at their rejoinder, while his mouth went up in one corner in slight gratification.

"Miss Williams will arrive the evening next and be sworn in the following morning." Fritz lit his pipe and took a puff before continuing. "I hope you all will welcome her with warm regards at the inauguration ceremony."

A great upheaval of "Here, heres" could be heard throughout the comfortable room, and above all the voices, one voice that was swelling with the slur of too much drink suddenly boomed.

"She'll get an even warmer welcome if she can settle the score with the bleedin' rebels!"

Without delay, the men sprang up from the table and goblins that were sitting in chairs across the room soon followed suit. Shouts clashed to be heard over the clanking of pint glasses that clattered together in agreement. The celebrated dignitary was soon forgotten as talk of impending war sizzled through the thick air.

"No more settlements-" "We'll teach them a lesson or two-" "They want war? We're ready-" "Rebel bastards-" "Nothing but a passel of Sudlicher rebs-"

The group continued to mill about with dirty proclamations, budding ever more excited with each passing comment, but the man leaning against the wall had not uttered a single word as the conversation grew hotter. His mouth curled down at one corner, and there was a glint of amused disdain showing in his eyes, as if he was listening to the foolish boastings of small children. He listened fixedly, twirling a crystal between the fingers of one hand with the practiced caress of a bad habit.

Finally, he spoke.

"Gentlemen," he said without moving his position or stance, "may I put a quick word in?"

* * *

"Well that hadn't gone well at all," Sarah thought as she trudged up the stairs. It was an unusually warm night for late October, and the thick sweltering evening air rising throughout the house did nothing to alleviate Sarah's sour mood. "You'd think your own family would at least support your decisions!"

She was hot and tired, and her body felt leaden with fatigue. She took each stair one step at a time, lifting her heavy feet in a slow, exaggerated fashion. She stopped on the landing, her clammy palm clutching harshly to the banister, to wipe away her dark, sticky locks from the dampness on her forehead and neck.

She had expected more from them. Anything more than a stifled approval for her "winter internship." Sarah rolled her eyes at the lie. And what a lie it was! An internship at a magazine in New York City, indeed. But she couldn't very well tell them the truth, could she? "I've become the substitute ruler of a province in a completely different world, but don't worry! I'll come back to visit!"

 _Wouldn't she?_

Well, it wasn't time to think about that now. Maybe some other time. There was too much on her mind to deal with tonight. The painful expressions from her family members would surely be enough to haunt her dreams. Her father could have told her to expect the worst from her brother and stepmother, but he noticed nothing. He sat solemnly, at one end of the table, suddenly an old gray man, with absent eyes fastened beyond Sarah, hardly hearing her words.

At least they would be out of the house tomorrow night when she would "depart."

Sarah finished her trek up the stairs, entered her bedroom hurriedly, and fell face-down onto the softness of her bed. Tomorrow would be one to really try her nerves. She turned drowsily onto her side, a slow slinking blackness enveloping her mind, and with a soundless breath, she fell asleep.

* * *

"Let's hear from the leader of our troops, then," Fritz spoke as all eyes turned toward the addressed man. "Speak up, Jareth, you have not yet favored us with your opinion."

There was the littlest manifestation of contempt in his face as he faced the group, but somehow, his gracious charisma covered up the disdain. A tense moment of utter silence greeted him as Jareth shoved himself up from his reclining stance and the crystal that he twirled in his right hand was suddenly crushed as black leather-encased fingers collapsed against his palm in a graceful gesture.

"If we fight the Sudlicher Isle, I'll go with," he said, "but has it occurred to any of you gentlemen that we are not prepared? Since the collapse of the Labyrinth, our supplies have gone to its renovation." Jareth stopped and pinched his eyes shut for a moment, as if trying to block out a bad memory. Then, surveying the room, he watched as two goblins attempted to free a third from a helmet that was placed on his rear end. He sighed audibly.

"And I shouldn't have to mention what a sad military we have."

He grinned then, bearing pointed white teeth in a feral, animal smile. Then, shoving his thumbs into the fissures of his trouser waistband, he shrugged.

"But of course, all of you have already thought of this."

With hot blood rushing to their cheeks, the men sitting about the table shifted uncomfortably in their chairs.

"Your Majesty!" one voice shouted out. "You are insulting us!"

"Not insulting, Didymus," Jareth corrected slowly, as if reprimanding a spoiled child, "just merely stating a fact. The rebels have all the essentials of which I spoke, and all we have is an overgrown hedge-growth of a maze that refuses to heal-even with my magic. If we were to fight, they'd defeat us in a heartbeat."

There was a startled silence, and then Jareth walked towards the group.

"I believe, gentlemen," Jareth said in a deeply polished voice that reflected his well-bred accent, "that you were discussing the upcoming arrival of our new governor. If you'll excuse me, I have other business in which to attend."

He swung about, and with a quick nod of reverence at Fritz, he turned to the group and bowed deeply, elegantly, a bow so cordial and yet so full of impudence that every man in the room felt a slap in the face at the very gesture.

And with that, he exited the room, his flaxen head held high in the air.

"Jareth!" Fritz called after the retreating form, scurrying as fast as his short, stubby legs could carry him. "Jareth! Do slow down, lad. I'm not as able-bodied as I used to...be," he said between loud, enumerating gasps.

"What is it?" Jareth answered back without hindering his stride or giving a backwards glance.

"Oh, dear...I must say, it must be all that brandy I drink on the quiet. I've lost most of my youthful vigor. But Jareth-"

"Yes?" he answered, finally stopping. Jareth swung about on heavy black heels that tapered up into black leather, distressed from riding. They cupped each of his calves snugly and didn't dare move with the flex of his muscles as he tapped his toe impatiently. He was agitated with the meeting as well as the unabashed braggadocio that dripped from his council members. As much as he liked to flaunt his own self-confidence, he knew when to let priggish words dissolve and let staidness prosper. The reconstruction of the labyrinth hadn't progressed at all in a decade, leaving the castle beyond the Goblin City open to attack from the Sidhe that used dark magic. His labyrinth, his fortress was broken, dying, and as vulnerable as a mortal with its skin removed and wouldn't be able to keep out anyone with magic if and when they decided to attack.

Face red from running, and breath coming in husky spasms, Fritz looked around, taking in the surroundings, and noticed they had entered the throne room. Raising his hand in dismissal, Jareth waved two goblin guards away to give the matter at hand a little privacy. He strode over to his throne, and sinking into the friendly suppleness, he let his head fall back over the rim, breathing a sigh of exhaustion.

"Jareth, you mustn't grow angry with them. They're just a bunch of fire-eating young chaps, and they'll do anything to protect your kingdom." Fritz's gasping had finally quieted, but he stood slouched with his hand drawn across his abdomen. "But, I say, I've never seen you in a state quite like this. What's got into you, you arrogant devil?"

"They're all fools," Jareth replied in a quiet voice, without lifting his head. "A peaceable settlement with the Sudlichers is out of the question with a stubborn brood like them." Producing a crystal, he tossed it repeatedly over his head while awaiting Fritz's response.

Fritz looked at his feet momentarily and played nervously with his hands. "The truth is, Jareth," he said softly, "there's no stopping the ensuing conflict. We can't hold back our boys and your Labyrinth isn't healing. The only thing we can do is await commencement."

Jareth caught the crystal, holding it above his head, and there was a moment of silent discomfort as he stared into it, letting Fritz's words sink into his mind. His mind was a sponge, soaked to its absolute capacity of surface tension with the gnawing onset of warfare and defeat, and he was struggling underwater to gain some sense of rationality and judgment. Jareth clenched his eyes shut for a moment, pinching the bridge of his nose tightly with his free hand. And then he resumed his tossing.

"When does the girl come?"

"The girl?"

"Yes, Fritz, the girl. Sarah."

"Oh yes, yes, Sarah. Well, my boy, she's not much of a girl any longer! Quite charming. But at any rate, I shall meet her tomorrow and bring her to the Launfal estate."

Jareth sat up suddenly and sighed, allowing the crystal to disappear with a flick of his wrist.

"I hope this isn't a mistake bringing her here. Have you mentioned to her anything about rebuilding the Labyrinth or using this dying monstrosity as our only defense in the war?"

A slight cough and a fat little boot drawing a circular pattern on the ground was Jareth's only response.

"No? Shame. Then I suppose I shall be the one to hand her a hoe and scythe and cover her lovely hands with blisters and calluses."

Fritz looked up at this and met Jareth's eyes, icy with bitter emotion.

"Your majesty, we can't lead her to believe we've blackmailed her into coming."

"That's what you're damn well doing," Jareth cut in, "isn't it, my dear friend? Giving her something in return for her slave work on the Labyrinth, hmm?" His voice was like saccharine, but his eyes still held a cold sparkle. Like fire and ice, Fritz thought, like fire and ice. "Let her clean up the mess that she made."

Jareth's words were snarling, dripping with the bitterness of a sore memory.

"She was a mere child," Fritz interrupted, as if seeing through Jareth's mind like crystal. "She didn't know what harm she could have been causing. And if I know you, you were probably out acting the tempting scoundrel! She must have been shaking in her boots, the poor girl, on whether she should love you or fear you!"

Jareth smiled impishly, and his eyes took on a look of momentary recollection.

"She never did fear me," he said, still smiling, and then his face fell and his eyes turned remote and gray.

Fritz smiled at the king. He wanted Jareth to be happy, the poor boy. If the stress of running a kingdom wasn't enough to bring the man down, the pressure of the looming war surely would.

"She will succeed, Jareth," Fritz said, his smile softening. "Well, my boy, I hate to run off, but it is growing late, and I should go home and see the missus before she thinks I'm off gallivanting around with some young sprite!" he said with a wink.

Jareth laughed openly, a loud laugh that caused him to throw back his head and left his wild mane tossing unevenly around his shoulders. "You rogue. Come, I'll show you to the door. I'm on way out anyway."

"And where are you off to at this hour?" Fritz teased with pseudo curiosity.

"Ahh," Jareth remarked decisively as he tapped his finger on his lower lip, and thought with mock intensity, "I thought I could do with some gallivanting."

"What's the matter, lad? I wasn't company enough for one evening?" laughed Fritz heading for the front gate.

Jareth gave a slow smile, revealing his sharp, white grin. "You're not quite the kind of company I had in mind, sir."

Fritz looked at him quickly, his eyes widened in revelation, and then he chortled shortly. "Oh Jareth!" he said, "Who's the rogue now, my boy?" And he laughed again.

* * *

The day passed in a blur for Sarah. She was an unthinking machine, passing the time idly, saying her goodbyes to her family, and subconsciously, her life as she knew it. Now, as she looked out the window and saw the sky turning a soft purple indicating the onset of a pleasant autumn twilight, she awaited her departure fretfully.

She looked over her belongings placed upon her bed. She had packed a small duffle bag with several of her personal items in it. Who knew what she would find in the Underground? She didn't seem to remember a Macy's the last time she was there, so it was probably highly unlikely she would be able to run out and buy a pair of underwear, should she need them. And besides, who knew if she would even return to her world? Sarah sighed at the thought, and sat hard on the bed, desperately searching her mind to think of something else-anything else-to block out the notion.

Her thoughts once again turned to her imminent future in the Underground. She felt a slight tingling of excitement about her new life. Here was a new adventure. She'd get to see her old friends again. It would be fun.

But what about the Goblin King?

Sarah sucked in her lower lip between her teeth and crinkled her forehead in nervous apprehension.

It would certainly be awkward running into him again. He wasn't the most pleasant character she had encountered. Shit, hadn't he tried to kill her? Well, maybe she was exaggerating. He was just playing his stupid game.

Sarah pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them securely, she rested her head in the tiny hollow they made. There was something electrifying about the prospect of meeting with the Goblin King once again, and Sarah couldn't decide if it was the idea of being face to face with a former adversary, or because of the erratic way her heart raced when he held her in his arms in the opus of a dream, so long ago.

Probably the former.

"Dusk is certainly a beautiful time in your world, isn't it?"

Sarah's head jerked around hastily to find Fritz, elbows perched haphazardly on the sill, staring out the open window.

"I've always thought," he continued, without drawing his eyes away from the evening scenery, "that an autumn twilight is the closest thing to true splendor. There's nothing in the universe quite like it."

Touched by his sudden reverie, Sarah joined Fritz at the windowsill, and inhaling the mild ambiance of the autumn breeze, she smiled.

"That's my thought exactly," Sarah said. "It's one of the things I'll treasure most about this world."

Fritz turned and looked at Sarah peculiarly. "Well, don't be so melancholy about it! You're certainly capable of coming back and enjoying a beautiful evening such as tonight whenever your heart desires."

Oh thank God! Sarah's heart silently rejoiced.

She looked taken aback and her quizzical eyes caused Fritz to laugh with mirth.

"It's not as if you're going to be a prisoner! You are free to travel between worlds, and either I, or another escort with the proper skill, will transport you at your will."

"You don't know what a relief that is to hear that," Sarah sighed to Fritz, letting out a nervous laugh. But there was a nagging thought pittering away in the back of her brain, a drowning question trying to surface.

 _But will HE allow me to come back?_

Fritz could read Sarah's thoughts on her face and pushed the conversation ahead, knowing that he wouldn't have a truthful answer for her.

"With that settled, shall we be on our way?" He held out his arm, awaiting Sarah's acceptance.

"Certainly."

She grabbed her bag off the bed, and within an instant of taking hold of Fritz's elbow, she found herself standing in the entryway of a cozy cottage. Still clutching Fritz's arm, her eyes widened as they took in her surroundings. They stood in front of a large set of French doors, presumably the front entrance of the house. Behind them was a wide staircase leading up to the second floor, stained in a dark wood.

"Welcome to Launfal, Sarah," Fritz said, motioning around him. "This will be your residence as sovereign of this province."

But Sarah did not hear his words, so lost in the grandeur of the front room was she. She ran through the French doors and stepped outside several paces to look over her new home. The approaching nightfall made it hard for her to see the exquisite details, but the cozy white house, with its shutter-lined dormers and flat shingled roof, reared its perfect magnificence before her.

"It's beautiful!" Sarah cried, with bubbling girlishness at the authenticity of having her first, real home after spending years traveling without a real home to call her own.

 _Like a dream come true_ , Sarah thought. _It's not really your own home_ , her mind argued. _This isn't even your world._

 _Shush_! Sarah fought with herself. _Don't spoil this. It's mine for the time being._

She turned around, and facing her yard, she found a wide brick entryway, lined on either side with looming willows. A small road ran in front of the estate where small, warmly lit cottages dotted the countryside. In the distance, she could spot the snaking curves of the dark Labyrinth-although, in the darkness of the sunset, it looked different than she remembered it. Before it, lay the proud inlet of the Goblin City. Sarah turned her head to the left and, looking down the winding road, she could see the castle beyond the Goblin City, what appeared to be less than a half-mile away. She felt an odd pang at the close proximity of the ominous citadel, but she shrugged off the feeling, and turning, she raced back inside.

"...is where you'll find the kitchens, and the dining room is just beyond them."

Had Fritz even noticed she was gone? Apparently not, if he was still presenting the first floor. Sarah smiled-widely-and felt at home. Her green eyes danced with a vibrant light and tiny freckles suddenly peaked across her nose as it wrinkled in her grin. "I love it, she said interrupting whatever it was Fritz was still explaining.

"I'm glad, my dear, but I'm afraid you won't have any servants for the night. Hopefully, the goblin help will arrive tomorrow for training."

Sarah shook her head in disapproval. "Oh, I don't need any servants. I've always been an independent person. I don't know if I could handle giving orders and receiving assistance with everything."

"But you shall have them, nonetheless," Fritz replied informatively. "It comes with your position, you know? Besides, the king insists."

Sarah sighed, and threw up her hands in defeat, a slight grimace appearing on her mouth. Hmm, so the king doesn't think I can take care of myself, does he?

"So what happens now? Sarah asked. I mean, shouldn't I be trained or something? I still don't know exactly what I'm doing here."

"Tomorrow will be the day, my dear. A very big day for you! I will arrive here on the morn and together we shall meet with the other cabinet members. Your position will be explained, you will be sworn in, and when evening falls, the festivities shall begin!"

Fritz raised his hand in an attempt to stifle a yawn, but Sarah took note and decided to wrap it up for the evening.

"Oh, she said and stretched her arms over her head as if to announce her own fatigue. Then I'm sure we can both use some rest. I think I can manage for a night." And with a genuine smile that showed her lovely white teeth and the smattering of freckles that peaked across her nose, "Thank you."

Fritz's heart melted.

"Oh, Sarah, you read my mind! Be ready bright and early tomorrow, my dear. It's going to be a big day."

He gave a short bow, and walking through the front doors, she saw him disappear into the sundown haze.

Sarah sighed and turned to explore her surroundings. She was standing in what appeared to be the dining room. Pale ivory walls with deep brown patterns etched into the corners of the walls surrounded her. She squinted to make out the art, but she couldn't identify the pattern. A heavy-looking rectangular mahogany table was in the center of the room. It wasn't large, just enough for four people, but it was beautiful to Sarah, nonetheless.

She looked to the wall opposite her and noticed a portrait of the Goblin King that hung directly above the table. His mismatched eyes bore directly into hers, seeming to rake over her body indecently, and he had the faintest hint of a smile across his smug lips. He looked menacing, yet proud of his animal magnetism. Almost exactly as he did right before he sent the cleaners after me, Sarah thought.

He stood at the top of a hill and his Labyrinth blazed in a glorious green spiral behind him. He was dressed all in black except for a vest of silver armor that clung tightly to his chest. Sarah noted that she didn't remember ever seeing him in armor during her trip, even though she noticed he must have had a dozen costume changes.

A gust of wind seemed to be whipping his cape about him, giving his stance a glorious, powerful look. His right gloved hand lay perched upon a riding crop, and in the crook of his left arm lay a baby, tightly swaddled in a black wrapping. Sarah moved closer to the portrait to see the babe's face, but noticed that no features peered out from the crop of wavy blond hair.

"Odd," she said aloud. "Why wouldn't the artist paint a face?"

Sarah moved backwards from the portrait a little, bumping into the table, but never took her eyes from the kings. "You like to watch me eat, huh?" she asked the portrait directly. "Such a creep." Sarah stuck her tongue out at the king, quickly, cocking her head to one side, then turned to walk upstairs.

"Ugh, well, at least I don't have to stay at the castle."

* * *

In a far, smoke-limned corner of the goblin tavern, Jareth sat, gloveless, running the tip of one slender finger around the rim of a short whiskey glass and beholding the pub's scene life unfolding before him this evening. Behind a low wooden counter, a husky goblin poured pints of ale and honey mead, sliding each down the bar in record time. He seemed to ignore the yelps of expostulation from the surrounding goblins and the shelled groundnuts they threw at his head. Interrupting his own prolific pouring every now and then, he grabbed his soiled apron to wipe the beads of perspiration gathering at his brow.

The stone walls of the room magnified the goblin chattering, making their voices sound tinny and nasal. Jareth sighed in annoyance and downed the last of his whiskey, signaling a small goblin woman with a tap of his finger on the table for another.

"Righty then, yer majesty. Here y'ar," said the goblin woman, being very cautious as she poured whiskey into his glass, for her fingers were knotted and stumpy and barely grasped the base of the bottle.

Jareth nodded in thanks and produced a fat bronze coin with a snap of his fingers, handing it to the woman without so much as a glance in her direction.

The fat little woman's beady black eyes widened in relish, grabbing the coin and stuffing it deep into her apron pocket before any of the other servers noticed.

"Thank'ye, yer majesty. Thank'ye!"

The Goblin King didn't have to remit payment. The tavern was, after all, in his kingdom-just a short distance down a cobblestone path from the castle. He, sitting among his subjects at a commonplace tavern, warranted the same courtesy from the staff as if they were serving him in his royal dining room. Despite his quick temper and cold demeanor, thought the woman, the Goblin King was a loyal monarch to his subjects. With a grin plastered on her toothless mouth, the goblin server left Jareth to his devices as he seemed to be lost in thought. Besides, she'd have to deposit her coinage someplace safe before the other goblins noticed this nicety.

Jareth indeed was a great observer now of late. He had learned to be, at least. Perhaps it was the vigilant nature of the owl inside of him, but at times it pained him to have the knowledge to read someone's thoughts and dreams so plainly in their eyes. Magic could be a stupid thing, and he wished for one moment that his world was mortal: fabricated by free will rather than fate.

A fair-faced woman with hair a deep merlot and eyes as violet as an autumn morning stood near the bar gazing wantonly at him, a clear and devout hunger lingering there. She wasn't of slight frame, but her dress clung to her teeming breasts as if it were made for a much smaller figure.

Jareth felt the heat from her gaze and looked up, tilting his chin and arching an eyebrow in salutation. He recognized this look on this woman-and others-many times on his behalf. Although charged with electric sexuality, Jareth knew it was hollow and superficial. And so, he would never return to them the courtesy of a similar look, even when he had one's frontside pinned against the stone wall of one of the tavern's flats, and he would push himself into her quickly yet savagely and she'd say his name in a stormy whisper at the peak of her pleasure.

Even then, he would squeeze his eyelids shut over mismatched eyes and bury his head with cold sobriety in her shoulder until he found his release.

So when he looked at this woman, who was promising him a night of raw passion with a wet tongue that sidled over wine-colored lips, he raked his eyes over her curves, staring pointedly at the full breasts. They professed the fulfillment of a sordid act he'd like very much to perform on them.

Only then did he shoot her back a look that he used on any woman of this sort that crossed his path. A look completely devoid of any affection or romance.

A look that simply said "satisfy me".

 _Hello again_ , his mind called to her.

 _You look lonely, Goblin King._

 _That I am._

 _Send me upstairs?_

A snap of his fingers removed the woman from the tavern floor with a trail of luster. He knew she'd be waiting for him, but he thought he'd enjoy his drink a moment longer. Women often requested a tarriance to his own personal bedchambers, but Jareth never brought anyone in there. That would be much too intimate, he thought, and he wasn't looking for intimacy.

And so he sat back for a moment, stretching his long legs in front of him and running his finger lightly on the rim of the tumbler. A gnawing pang of curiosity bubbled tightly in his chest and as he fought the urge to shake it, his hand-as if by its own free will-withdrew from the glass and produced a crystal. He looked into it with wavering curiosity and saw Sarah. Her eyes were bright and intense, and they were searching.

 _Searching for what, little girl?_

He followed her eyes and saw them settle on his portrait. Jareth sat up as he saw Sarah narrow in on the picture. In her face, he saw a look of confusion….and something else.

What was it?

The Goblin King's mouth went up at one corner and he rested his chin in one hand in anxious curiosity as if he was watching an opponent take his next move in a chess tournament. His eyes danced.

And then Sarah spoke.

"You like to watch me eat, huh?" she asked the portrait directly. "Such a creep."

Jareth hurled the sphere at the stone wall in front of him, the image of Sarah's fat little tongue mocking him as it dissolved into a million tiny crystals.

Then, he was gone.

And despite the owl's heightened senses, he failed to notice a dark-haired man who sat alone, with fire in his eyes, sharpening a blade on his boot as he watched Jareth's entire performance.


	3. Ch 3: Spoils

"Hello, Sarah."

Sarah awoke to the sound of his voice but oddly found herself already sitting up in bed, her white eyelet comforter draped in bunches about her waist. The room was black but overcast with a shimmering fog and, for a moment, she wondered where she was. The solidity of her four-poster bed confessed that she was in her bedroom at Launfal.

At first, she thought the voice was just a figment of her imagination, a memory from her past that had flown back to the recesses of her mind like a hawk circling in midcountry.

"This is a dream, isn't it?" she asked, mostly to herself.

Her head felt hazy and there was a slow fluidity to her reflexes.

It _had_ to be a dream.

And then he spoke again.

"These dreamlike-er, what should I call them? Trysts?- seem to be your forte."

His voice was crisp and clipped in accent and-dare she say it- _mocking_ , the only genuine element in an otherwise illusory moment. It sounded just as she had remembered it, the same whiskey soaked, _sultry_ voice that had respired huskily in her ear just before he sent the cleaners after her.

Sarah squinted her eyes toward the sound of his voice, and somewhere beyond the haze, she made out the outline of a black boot resting comfortably on a black knee.

Black on black. _In_ the black.

"This meeting couldn't have waited until tomorrow, when I'm awake?" Sarah wanted to sound annoyed, but she knew her frank curiosity was creeping through her voice. She dreamt of him once in a ballroom, ten years ago; but in the decade that followed, he never once reappeared in her dreams. Why was he here now?

"I should be wondering the same." He sounded _bored_. "You invited me."

She paused for a moment at his response until she remembered her original question.

"I did no such thing!"

Sarah could hear him lean forward now, the sound of leather moving on wood, but she still could not see his face. He spoke and his voice was low and close, a lover's whisper in the night.

"Did you know that you have eyes like a cat-a cat in the dark?"

He was laughing at her. Sarah felt hot blood boil up to her face, and she made a silent promise to herself to always hold the upperhand in a conversation with him. In dreams or in person.

Narrowing her eyes into two green slits, Sarah crossed her arms and spoke through tight lips.

"Well," she huffed. "Now that you're here, what am I supposed to do with you?"

 _That was worded poorly._

Plan backfired.

She could now see sharp white teeth grinning in the dark.

He didn't acknowledge her verbal blunder, though, and somehow, his silence at the proposed innuendo was even more embarrassing than if he had. Sarah said a silent prayer of thanks that the blackness hid her crimson face, although she wondered just how much he could see.

"Pity we're meeting this way." His voice was still close and it resounded with a rich low note that made the pit of her stomach flutter and her spine tingle even beneath her long nightgown. "I was hoping our reunion in the Underground could have been a little more- _palpable_."

Sarah saw, then, a crystal appear in what looked like midair, but she had a sinking suspicion that a tripod of three black leather-encased fingers held it in the darkness. Before she could open her mouth to respond, the crystal burst, leaving a trail of shimmering refuse in its wake.

And then there was nothing but black.

* * *

One eye fluttered open, the other smashed closed against the flat of her pillow. The morning sun came streaming in through Sarah's window, a single laserbeam of heat controlled by the small cleft the curtains made. She groaned as she pushed herself up from her pillow, squinting against the light. Shoving her tangled mess away from her face, Sarah wondered exactly which part of last night was a shared dream and what had been conceptualized by her own imagination.

But right there, she noticed, about five feet from the corner post on the foot of her bed, was a captain's chair made of fine mahogany.

* * *

"It's about time ye woke up for breakfast. I damn near tossed yer eggs and started afternoon tea."

The clattering sound of a metal pot hitting a stone floor is what called Sarah downstairs. She paused in her bed, thinking it may have just been a mishung pot that fell accidentally; but when she heard a new sound of ruckus, she grabbed a copper-colored vase that stood from her bed stand and silently headed downstairs.

"Who knows what type of burglar I'm dealing with? This is the Underground!" Sarah thought to herself as she clung to the bannister, keeping her weight off her feet in a resolute effort to be as quiet as possible.

Sarah crept into the kitchen where her supernatural burglar stood: a small, pear-shaped woman with a rather large behind. And she was whipping up something that looked like a frittata.

As she spoke to Sarah, she glanced at her only momentarily with a rather large amount of disinterest, as if she'd already seen her a trillion times before.

 _Oh, it's you._

She shrugged and grabbed a pinch of something that resembled herbs and threw them in a large bowl, whisking with the ferocity of a Le Cordon Bleu-trained chef.

"Are you going to come to the breakfast table looking like a woman of the night every morning?" she quipped without dropping a whisk. She turned and looked at Sarah then, two beady eyes in a sea of wrinkles. Sarah couldn't tell if she was human or goblin, or some strange hybrid of the two. But between her small stature and wrinkled face, she thought the old lady reminded her of the hand-made dolls she'd constructed as a Girl Scout: a walnut head covered with a fit of curly white cotton.

The woman's beady eyes settled on what was in Sarah's hand.

"Lookin' for some fresh flowers, are ya, dearie?"

Sarah chose to ignore both questions.

"And you are…?"

"Estel, your Now that's _ES-tel_. Not _es-TELLE._ Thought I'd clear that up before ye go callin' me some fancified version of me own name."

"Well, Estel. In my world, it's commonplace to eat breakfast in our pajamas. I'll get changed after I eat."

The woman grunted and turned her back to Sarah once more.

"You don't really have to do that," Sarah felt uneasy at the silence between them. "Cook for me, I mean. I'm quite capable of running a household by myself."

The woman turned a single eye at Sarah in unabashed judgment as if she considered her comment and thought otherwise.

"I'll be here to cook your meals, clean up after ye, and fashion your garb."

Sarah frowned.

"That's very nice of you, thank you, but it's not necessary…"

"My services are already paid for," Estel broke her off mid-sentence with a wave of her hand.

"By whom?" Sarah knew the answer before she asked the question but wanted to make her defiant disinterest obvious. And truthfully, she was shocked that he would be paying _anyone_ for a service. Estel simply shot her a look that told her she must be the stupidest woman alive.

"He's wasting his money," Sarah said, crossing her arms and cocking an eyebrow.

"That's not up to you, girl. This is _his_ kingdom. Besides, he's got money to spend."

Sarah, slack-jawed and arms still crossed, looked with incredulous curiosity at this woman. Was she actually defending a goblin king-a man who stole babies for fun and treated his subjects to moonlit dinners in the bog of eternal stench-for forcing her servitude?

 _Maybe she's just afraid of him_ , Sarah thought. But there was something about the way Estel's chin jutted out in dogmatic defense that made her think it wasn't fear that kept her loyal.

Sarah shrugged and decided not to press the matter, taking a flaky pastry off the countertop and sitting at the dining room table that lay just outside the kitchen where Estel continued to furiously whip up an extravagant breakfast.

"I know you'll be going to the castle today," Estel said while pouring the egg mix into a ceramic dish. "And since I haven't had time to tailor any clothing for you, you'll have to make do with the pieces that have been prepared. I can alter them later."

"Thank you, but I packed my own clothing."

Estel slammed the dish down hard into the oven and shut the oven door with such animated frustration that the hanging pots and pans rattled into the living room.

"I'd recommend you try blending in around here, girl. Not everyone will be as generous as the king to the girl who destroyed the Goblin City." Estel waddled into the living room with a carafe of coffee and stopped to eye Sarah's slept-in breakfast look. "You'll stick out like a sore thumb around these parts." A beady eye grazed over Sarah's form with unabashed judgment. She wore a periwinkle blue pajama set with shorts that showed off her long legs but may have been too "American" for foreign tastes. And the stiff cotton of the set, while pretty, wrinkled overnight and never looked quite as flawless as it did on the model in the catalog where Sarah first saw it.

"Generous?" Sarah scoffed and threw her pastry down on the plate. But despite the overwhelming desire to keep defending herself, Sarah knew she'd never win a sparring match with Estel. And besides, she did have a point. She looked up at the portrait above her table and met the eyes of the Goblin King. There was something unnerving about the thought that Sarah might have enemies in the Underground, especially since Fritz promised her she was held in high regard.

"I'm sorry. You're right." Sarah put on a sheepish face but then turned her prettiest smile to Estel in a weak attempt to make amends. "There's no use looking like an outsider."

"Thatta girl." Estel returned the smile with a wink and poured her a cup of coffee just as there was a loud knock on the door.

"Who's that?'

* * *

"Sarah, you're not yet dressed and we need to get to the castle."

Fritz strolled into the dining room looking quite out of breath as if he'd been walking for some time. His hair looked windblown and his cheeks were ruddy, but he still wore impeccably pressed gray trousers and a matching waistcoat. He grasped hurriedly at a pocketwatch with thirteen hours on the face, glanced at it once, then tucked it into his waistcoat pocket.

He made an endearing picture and Sarah dimpled at his presence. If everything else went wrong here, she knew she'd have a friend in Fritz.

"They'll be time for breakfast later." A gloved hand swatted the air, telling her to shove along.

Sarah spoke with a mouthful of a fig-filled pastry. "I didn't realize it was so late," she mumbled, sparing a final moment to wash her meal down with a swig of coffee. "I-er-didn't exactly sleep well."

Fritz looked impatient and she didn't think he wanted to hear the rest of her story.

"I guess I just need to adjust to the Underground hours!" she yelled over her shoulder, taking the stairs two at a time to get to her bedroom.

* * *

She shuffled through the bedroom closet, tossing gown after gown over her shoulder.

"Of course there wouldn't be anything practical. Why should there be?" Sarah paused for a moment, sitting back on her heels, and wiped the little beads of sweaty frustration from her forehead. Just like at home, the Indian Summer was sweeping through the Underground, and Sarah was struggling _hard_ to find something both weather appropriate and functional.

She reached further into the back of the closet and pulled out a new handful of pieces. She laid them down on the floor next to her and began picking them off, one by one.

"Don't women wear pants in this place?"

In all honesty, she thought, she didn't remember seeing any women in this place other than the dancers in the ballroom and the junk collector.

"This will do, I guess." Sarah held up a soft cotton dress in a solid khaki color. She quickly threw it over head and looked at herself in the mirror. "Yes, this will have to do." She shifted on her heels, turning side to side to see the dress on her. It was really quite becoming, hitting just below her knees to allow her long legs to still peek through. It looked like a German dirndl, without the fancy accoutrements, save for a solid ribbon of emerald green along the bottom of the skirt and the collar. It was sleeveless so the caps of her shoulders were bared and showed the tiny smattering of freckles in a haze of bronze that she collected while traveling in Capri.

Sarah pulled at the front of the dress and frowned. Estel was right: the clothing would have to be altered. The dress was a little bit too tight, more likely made for a smaller busted girl. The tightness of the top dipped dangerously low and tight along Sarah's breasts. This wasn't going to be a business meeting, Sarah thought; this was going to be show-and-tell.

She pushed her shoulders forward and tried to suck in her front.

"I look like I'm wearing a slutty Halloween costume," she frowned knowing that she'd be most likely treating all of Goblin City to a free peepshow. "Oh well. No time to change."

Sarah gave another tug at the front of the dress in a final effort to stretch it out, then sighed and ran down the stairs to join Fritz.

* * *

Sarah slowed her steps on the cobblestone walk to match Fritz's slow labored ones. The late morning sun felt warm on her exposed shoulders and her cheeks began to turn ruddy. Fritz promised her the walk to the castle wouldn't be long. Politely, she asked why he couldn't just use magic to whisk them away there.

"I thought you'd quite like to enjoy a walk through the province you'll be staying in," he insisted. "And besides, you'll have to learn your way around these parts. You won't be able to call on someone with magic to aid you in travel every time you'd like to leave the house."

He was right-on all accounts. Sarah _was_ enjoying the walk and realized that although she had already been in the Underground longer than the thirteen hours she previously stayed, she had hardly seen anything this time around. The tiny community was beautifully provincial, but with-she noted-a surprising amount of modern conveniences. Street lamps stood in front of each of the cottages and as they walked past a farmer's market, Sarah noticed a few goblin vendors spraying off the sidewalk with a high-pressure hose.

Contrary to what Estel had told her about blending in, apparently Sarah's presence was still flagrant. Each pedestrian they passed-humanlike or creature-took notice of her: some with a raised hand of salutation, others with angry eyes. Some just stopped and stared.

"Fritz," Sarah began while holding the gaze of a particularly angry looking dwarfish man with pointed ears. He stood at the farmer's market near a bushel of peaches, holding the hand of a raucous little goblin girl with three pigtails.

"Hmm?"

"Why do some of these people-er, things-look like they want to skin me alive? I thought you said I'd be welcome here."

Fritz slowed his already sluggish gait and looked at Sarah. Poor girl. He'd have to be honest, at least about some things. He sighed.

"Sarah, I haven't been completely honest with you. The opinions around here about you are...diverse. The labyrinth hasn't exactly healed since you last left. Some think your presence might hasten its healing."

He looked towards the sun at the labyrinth in the distance and Sarah followed his gaze.

"Others think you're here to finish destroying it."

She squinted against the sun to glance at the labyrinth and she recognized the difference in it that she saw last night in the darkness. Its walls looked ashen and recessed. There was an overgrowth, not of greenery, but of nasty thickets that looked sharp and invasive.

"But I _conquered_ it. I didn't destroy it."

Fritz shrugged. "I know. But it's been like this since you beat his game."

"So why can't he fix it?" Sarah didn't want to take the blame for something so large, and she didn't like the thought others wanting to blame her. She had no part in this. She conquered the labyrinth, fair and square. No cheating. All destruction happened of its own accord.

"The king has tried. We all have." Fritz stopped then. They had entered the gates of Goblin City and had to wait for two goblin guards to clear the path of wayward chickens and equally obstinate goblins. "We can't contain its decomposition," he said grabbing Sarah by the elbow and guiding her to the castle entrance.

Two wide doors opened and they walked into an empty throne room. Sarah looked around wide-eyed, shocked to see it vacant. She expected to find the place crawling with goblins and wished away babies and whatever else befell this place-and in its center, a king lounging in a throne.

But there was nothing, save an empty throne and the echo of their footsteps as Fritz propelled her into another room.

Sarah's heart began to beating wildly as if she'd drank too much caffeine. The heat was messing with her breathing, she thought, and the realization of Fritz's admission paired with the anxiety of seeing the Goblin King for the first time in a decade was causing her to feel dizzy.

 _But he hadn't even shown up yet._

A strange mix of anger and disappointment, although she couldn't put her finger on why it might exist, was brewing inside. Fritz held open a large wooden door with a stained glass window in the arch, and Sarah stepped inside an ornate library that was much, much cooler. She shivered at the sudden change in temperature, feeling the goosebumps prick up on her bare arms that were already damp with perspiration.

"You know what's causing it, don't you?" Sarah asked Fritz, suddenly. He was too quiet, as if he was carefully mulling over what to say next, choosing his right words. "The destruction of the labyrinth, I mean. You know why it's happening."

He only smiled sadly at her. She looked so young, so innocent.

 _So frightened._

He wished he could see the confident Sarah of yesterday, the one thirsty for adventure and ready to conquer the world. As his ice blue eyes sunk into her searching green ones, he wondered if she, too, knew why the labyrinth was dying or if her innocence really did keep her oblivious.

Fritz dropped his gaze when he couldn't muster up an answer but glanced up when he felt her warm hand on his forearm.

This time, determined green eyes bore into his own.

"Then why bring me here-now, in the middle of all this?" Sarah's voice was low and throaty when she spoke, and Fritz couldn't tell if she was holding in her anger or her tears.

He smiled sadly.

 _Because he needs you now_ went unspoken.

"His majesty may be able to answer your questions when he arrives-if he's feeling generous. I'll leave you now to wait." Fritz bent to kiss her hand, but she grasped onto his and held it dumbly.

"Please," she inquired, her voice still raspy. "Will I still be able to return home?"

He dropped her hand and shrugged. "I hope so."

Then he was gone before she could speak again, the sound of the great door closing softly behind him.

Sarah stumbled forward suddenly and caught herself on a little table, the reaction from her rage making her knees feel weak. She felt duped and frightened in a world that was not her own. She was suddenly 15 again at the edge of the labyrinth, unsure of the capricious rules of this foreign land. Now, the rules had changed again and she had so many questions she wanted answers to. But _he_ wasn't here.

She looked around the library, walls lined from floor to cathedral ceiling with books bound in dark-colored leathers. About fifteen feet in front of her was a blue velvet settee facing an expansive fireplace, its hearth made of large stone. Above it was another portrait of Jareth, this one much larger than the one in her cottage. His depiction was sitting in a throne with the labyrinth winding in the background. His eyes looked like they were laughing but he was painted at ease, his legs crossed casually with his chin resting in one hand while the other hand held a crystal.

 _Bastard_.

Her breathing was labored and she felt flushed again as she stared into the portrait's mismatched eyes. Her hand dropped to the little table in front of her, fingering a tiny china tchotchke on which two painted goblins smirked. The room was so still she almost screamed to break the silence. She must do something or go mad. She picked up the china piece and hurled it viciously across the room toward the portrait. It barely cleared the tall back of the settee and splintered with a little crash against the stone mantelpiece.

"Must you always," said a voice from the depths of the couch, "destroy something every time you visit me?"

Nothing had ever startled Sarah so much, and her mouth went too dry for her to utter a sound. She caught hold of the table, her knees going weak under her, as the Goblin King rose from the sofa where he had been lying and made her a bow of exaggerated politeness.

"It is bad enough to have an afternoon nap disturbed by my vanquisher, but why should my property be damaged as well?"

He was real. He wasn't a dream. She rallied her forces into a semblance of dignity.

"You should have made your presence known." Sarah stuck her chin out and tried to look collected, despite her state of disarray.

"Indeed?" His white teeth gleamed and his ethereal eyes laughed at her. "But you were the intruder."

He moved toward her now, his graceful body moving effortlessly. He wore a navy shirt that was tight on his arms and torso but looked oddly soft and comfortable. His trousers were calfskin and despite his respite, he still wore black riding boots. He looked so utterly elegant and impeccable, as if his nap had done him good.

 _Damn him and his infallible looks,_ thought Sarah. And here she was winded, pink-faced and clammy.

As if he could read her mind, his eyes raked over her form, settling on the sweaty spot that gathered on her cleavage. His eyes flitted back to hers again, and Sarah saw they were still full of mockery but there was something else in them, deep in them, a gleam that defied analysis. He still stood casually, leisurely; but she felt like he was watching her like a cat watches a mousehole.

When Jareth caught her inquiring eyes on him, his face changed, an impassive look taking its place.

Her temper was beginning to rise again at the thought that this giant _asshole_ of a man could remain so breezy when he _knew_ she wanted explanations and...and...Sarah didn't know. What did she want?

 _Kindness?_

She knew better to expect that from him.

"Maybe it's asking too much for you to actually be honest with me, but perhaps you could tell me- _truthfully_ -why I'm really here."

Sarah wasn't sure if it was her nerves or her lack of substantial calories at breakfast, but when she spoke, her voice sounded far-away. She noticed how suddenly constricting her too-tight dress felt, and she breathed deeply in an effort to circulate the oxygen. She wavered on her feet but gripped the table in front of her tightly, her knuckles turning white at the strain.

Jareth arched an eyebrow at her movements inquisitively, a single blond diagonal receding into his hairline, and for a moment, Sarah thought she saw something like concern wash over his face. He made a sudden motion as if to reach out and catch her but quickly steeled his arms at his side.

And when he spoke again, his eyes were bitter.

"I'm disappointed in your deduction skills, Sarah. I thought such a cultured and wordly person such as yourself would have figured it out by now." Jareth moved closer to her, his eyes dancing with mockery. His hip now rested against the table she was clutching and he placed two brown leather-encased hands on the marble top, barely touching her whitened knuckles. He leaned into the action so that he was eye-level with Sarah. She saw the same look in his eyes she saw earlier:

Searching. Searching for _something_.

"But since you haven't, I'd hate for you to think I had any other intention of requesting your presence in my kingdom than the one that remains to be seen."

He straightened and brought a single finger up to her chin, tilting her face up to his. For a moment, Sarah thought he was going to kiss her. She could smell the scent of leather from his gloves and something was dancing wildly in his eyes.

Yes, he was going to kiss her and she was going to let him. And she wasn't sure if it was her lightheadedness or the anticipation of being kissed by Jareth that made her feel absurdly giddy.

Sarah lowered her lashes and let her red lips fall open in encouragement, the proper pose for kissing.

When he made no move to lower his head, Sarah opened her eyes, a strange sense of faint disappointment washing over her. He still held her chin in his hand, the leather massaging it in small circles. Sarah's breathing still came in jerky gasps.

"You cruel girl, my undoing." His voice was low and breathy and it made her stomach drop. "You, my dear Sarah, as the sole defeater of my labyrinth, are its new ruler. Its new architect. I simply need you to restore it and return ownership to me."

Sarah jerked out of his grasp, but the movement caught her breath and before she could open her mouth to speak, she fainted-a swirl of blue and brown tainting her vision as she went down.

And then, for the second time she was in his presence, there was darkness.


End file.
